• 44.403°N 8.972°E 40 m a.s.l.

Atmospheric simulation chamber

Italy

• National Institute for Nuclear Physics (INFN)

https://labfisa.ge.infn.it/index.php

• Paolo Prati
  Facility PI (1 Jan 2023 – 31 Dec 2025)
• Federico Mazzei
  PI deputy (1 Oct 2023 – 31 Dec 2026)
• Dario Massabò
  PI deputy (1 Oct 2023 – 31 Dec 2026)
• Virginia Vernocchi
  PI deputy (1 Oct 2023 – 31 Dec 2026)

Chamber (ChAMBRe = Chamber for Aerosol Modelling and Bio-aerosol Research)

ChAMBRe is a stainless steel atmospheric simulation chamber (volume approximately 2.2 m3) installed at the National Institute of Nuclear Physics in Genoa (INFN-Genova, www.ge.infn.it) and developed in collaboration with the Environmental Physics Laboratory at the Physics Department of Genoa University. ChAMBRe has unique characteristics and is equipped with a large set of instruments/tools for aerosol characterization.

ChAMBRe has developed several protocols to perform experiments with bioaerosol and carbonaceous aerosols

The bio-aerosol is a relevant subject of scientific investigation but the mechanisms of interaction between bio-aerosols and other aerosols, the behavior of airborne micro-organisms in different atmospheric conditions and the impact of bio-aerosols on radiation and clouds are still poorly known and requires deeper investigation.

The scientific interest on this topic can be mainly ascribed to three aspects:

the strong impact on human health;
the climatological effects due to the important role that biological particles are supposed to play in ice nuclei formation and cloud condensation;
the impact on plants and animals health, with relevant consequences on the economy related to agriculture and livestock.

A further topic addresses at ChAMBRe is the optical behavior of fresh and aged carbonaceous aerosol. The chamber is used in connection to home-developed equipment as the MWAA and BLAnCA (Massabò et al., Atmos. Environ, 2015, Isolabella et al., N. Cimento 2023).

• Massabò et al. (2018). ChAMBRe: a new atmospheric simulation chamber for aerosol modelling and bio-aerosol research. Atmos. Meas. Tech., 11(10), 5885-5900. https://doi.org/// 10.5194/amt-11-5885-2018
• Danelli et al. (2021). Comparative characterization of the performance of bio-aerosol nebulizers in connection with atmospheric simulation chambers. Atmos. Meas. Tech., 14(6), 4461-4470. https://doi.org/// 10.5194/amt-14-4461-2021
• Vernocchi et al. (2022). Characterization of soot produced by the mini inverted soot generator with an atmospheric simulation chamber. Atmos. Meas. Tech., 15(7), 2159-2175. https://doi.org/// 10.5194/amt-15-2159-2022
• N.N. (2023). A Practical Guide to Atmospheric Simulation Chambers. https://doi.org/// 10.1007/978-3-031-22277-1
• Vernocchi et al. (2023). Airborne bacteria viability and air quality: a protocol to quantitatively investigate the possible correlation by an atmospheric simulation chamber. https://doi.org/// 10.5194/egusphere-2023-1580
• Isolabella et al. (2023). A new software toolkit for optical apportionment of carbonaceous aerosol. https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2023-1936